


To Fear the Dark

by AnnaofAza



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Domestic Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7598614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All he had to do was walk up those stairs, open the door, and make it as quick and clean as possible. But privately, Eggsy hoped Dean would scream, cry, or beg for mercy. It was all the bastard deserved, but Eggsy couldn’t get caught.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Fear the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mockingjaybee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockingjaybee/gifts).



Eggsy was shivering, rain plastering his clothes to his goose-pimpled skin, but he didn’t care. Fury and worry burned in his chest - not white-hot, like fire, but slow and hidden, like greying, smoking charcoal. His heart was pounding in time to his furious steps, but he tried to keep his face perfectly blank as he passed a few people on the sidewalk. His hands were shaking, still bruised with the knuckles scraped open, and he kept telling himself to _focus_. To calm down. He couldn’t do this with his hands in this state.

But he couldn’t calm down. His mother’s screams of fear and pain still echoed in his brain, his throat still ached and scratched from his desperate screams, and his arms ached from holding Daisy for hours. His little sister was safely at Jamal’s, who, out of all his mates, knew how to take care of kids, considering he had four little brothers and one little sister of his own. Normally, he’d be afraid of leaving Daisy for this long, but he trusted Jamal, and besides, he couldn’t take Daisy back to the flat or leave her at the hospital.

“Your mum is sleeping now, love,” the doctor had said solemnly, but her face looked very grave. “We ran some tests and have to monitor her overnight, all right? You ought to get some rest.”

Eggsy could only nod, helplessly watching his mum’s chest rise and fall in time to the clicks and _whirr_ s of the machines. Nearly every inch of her exposed skin was bloated dark purple and red, and although they’d cleaned her up the best they could, she looked too pale, too weak, too fragile. A large bandage was wrapped around his mum’s head, dirty blonde strands tangled on her face, and her exposed fingers still had dried blood underneath them. Eggsy hoped the ugly, swelling scratches on his stepfather’s face were the result of those bitten-down nails.

The coppers had arrived almost five minutes after Eggsy had smashed the window with his elbow and rolled in front of Dean’s fists, shouting at his mum to run. For what it seemed like hours, he’d blocked and kicked and fought, only beginning to slow when Dean wrapped his fingers around the chain around Eggsy’s neck and began twisting.

The coppers had told him that he’d been gasping, “Oxfords not brogues, oxfords not brogues,” when they’d yanked Dean off of him.

It seemed like hours, being interviewed by the coppers. The local ones didn’t much like Eggsy, but even they talked to him in low, sympathetic tones when they saw the state of his mum, Daisy’s tear-stained face, and Eggsy’s own shaking hands. Somehow, that made it almost worse.

He’d told them what had happened in clipped, quick tones: that Dean had gotten drunk with his mates, that he’d began insulting Eggsy (what Eggsy didn’t tell the coppers was that Dean was demanding he’d go out and work on Smith Street so Dean could pay off some debt he somehow didn’t have the money for), that his mum tried to defend him, that Dean had struck her right across the jaw, that Dean had thrown Eggsy and Daisy out of the flat and locked the door, and…well, the rest, they knew.

Dean’s dogs had scraped together the bail, and much to Eggsy’s horror and anger, tonight, Dean was back in the flat as if he’d never truly left, awaiting his trial in a few months. And between the meds the doctors had prescribed, Daisy’s nappies, and basic necessities, Eggsy and his mum didn’t stand a chance. He couldn’t hire a proper lawyer, and his friends were as broke as he was (and Eggsy never took charity). Dean didn’t give a shit about anything other than himself, and like it or not, his mates _did_ have a decent amount of money, both by legal and illegal means.

The pistol Eggsy had lifted from Poodle months ago would take care of it.

Now, Eggsy approached Rowley Way, hood pulled up over his face and gloves on his steadier hands. He knew for a fact that this was Dean’s dogs’ pub night, and that Dean was staying behind because he’d been banned for a few months time after he’d caused a drunken ruckus, which Dean had made Eggsy pay for. Everyone would be out or asleep at this time of the night, and Eggsy knew where all the cameras were.

All he had to do was walk up those stairs, open the door, and make it as quick and clean as possible. But privately, Eggsy hoped Dean would scream, cry, or beg for mercy. It was all the bastard deserved, but Eggsy couldn’t get caught.

But how he _wanted_ to make Dean suffer. Without him, he and his mum had still been down on their luck, but they didn’t have to live every second weighed down by fear and distrust. The only good thing that had come out of Dean was Daisy, and sometimes, in the darkest depths of Eggsy’s heart, he knew Daisy made their financial burdens worse, even though she didn’t mean to. He loved his little sister; he’d do anything for her, but he didn’t want the life he lived for her. She didn’t deserve to grow up afraid. Dean hadn’t threatened to hit her, but he _did_ make it clear that his daughter was Michelle’s or Eggsy’s responsibility, not his.

And of course, his mum didn’t deserve to put up with Dean. She’d tried to leave, but Dean always found her, either by himself or with his goons, and ended up worse for it. Eggsy had long shed those illusions of parents being able to protect their kids.

 _Take care of your mum,_ he remembered the man from long ago say to him, before he’d walked out of their lives forever, just like his dad.

This time, Eggsy vowed to keep that promise.

“Eggsy.”

Startled out of his thoughts, Eggsy stopped, even though he didn’t recognize the voice. It was posh, smooth, and even though it couldn’t be true, sounded as if it _knew_ Eggsy, from the gun tucked away in his jacket to his rapidly-thinking mind trying to rationalize what he was about to do.

“Who are you?”

The man didn’t answer. “I know what you’re attempting to do.”

Eggsy’s heartbeat stopped for an instant. “What? I don’t know wh - “

“You want to kill Dean Anthony Baker for the grievous assault upon your mother, as well as the emotional and physical abuse he’s inflicted upon you and your family.”

“No,” Eggsy said, but his voice gave away his astonishment. “No, I…”

“I’m not going to stop you,” the stranger continued, and before Eggsy could do more than gape at him, he said: “But it would be unwise. You have potential witnesses who will hear gunshots or screams. They will see a young man running from the scene. Your gloves still have traces of DNA on them,and so will the flat once you’re done. The gun most likely hasn’t been dusted clean, and I warrant you haven’t shot one since your stint in Marines training. Not to mention, the motive. It’s obvious.”

Eggsy paused. “Who are you?” he repeated.

“Harry Hart. I gave you that medal a long time ago, the one you’re wearing around your neck and its chain in which your stepfather attempted to strangle you with.” He raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t call the number, but the authorities informed me that you said the code phrase.”

He had talked to the authorities? He must be close with them, or a very powerful man. Eggsy forced himself to look into the man’s - Harry’s - eyes. He associated brown eyes with kindness and warmth, but these were like the earth, the kind outside the city that could hide a body. “Are you gonna arrest me?”

“I offered you a favor,” Harry said, ignoring him. “Anything. I didn’t specify any requirements or restrictions. So, tell me, Eggsy: why not call in the favor to do what you will, albeit sloppily, attempt to accomplish?”

For a few minutes, Eggsy simply stared. The man only looked back, stone-faced, with hands clasped around the curved handle of the black umbrella raised above his head. Rain pattered down on both of them, but Harry didn’t offer his shelter to Eggsy or simply order him to come underneath the umbrella. He looked, the more Eggsy remembered, the same: brown coiffed hair, pin-striped suit, dark-rimmed glasses, and deft, large hands.

Yet, he also looked like he could take the entire world in his palm and crush it in between his fingers. Harry Hart did not look like the sort of person who wept helplessly in a too-small room or pleaded with his mother to run.

He was not like Eggsy, not at all, but Eggsy wished, in that moment, to be him. Cool. Capable. Confident.

“I want him to be afraid,” Eggsy finally said, voice hard and unlike his own.

Harry smiled, very slowly, very cruelly. “Then, if you wish to wait a little while, let me teach you.”


End file.
